Srinagar, July 10 -- By Iqbal Ahmad

Almost thirty sultans ruled Kashmir between 1339 and 1589, leaving behind a kingdom remembered in chronicles, coins and carved inscriptions.

Everything seems to have survived except the buildings that mattered most.

The palaces where kings held court, received ambassadors and framed the valley's future have almost entirely disappeared.

The Shahmiri and Chak dynasties governed a kingdom rich enough to commission twelve-story wooden halls. None of them survives today.

That absence is beyond an accident of history. It is a verdict on the material sultans chose.

Historians such as Srivara, Mirza Haider, P.N.K. Bamzai, G.M.D. Sofi and Hassan Khoihami documented an extensive record of royal building: Za...